


They Say

by Violentlydelightful



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: AU: Batman is a Cryptid, Bat Family, Spooky Bat Family, there's more than one way to scare criminals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 21:29:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14723913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violentlydelightful/pseuds/Violentlydelightful
Summary: Maryland has the Goatman. West Virginia has Mothman. And Gotham City has the Batman, a terrifying, possibly inhuman cryptid who patrols the city's streets after dark, hunting criminals and frightening children.Or, there are ways to scare criminals that have nothing to do with brute strength.





	They Say

([Inspired by this tumblr post.](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/almostviolentlydelightful/174117827449))

They say the Batman only comes out after dark. Sarah had heard this for most of her life. It started with her mother, worrying in the absent-minded way of parents in the poorer parts of Gotham. Loving, but tired, distracted. 

“Come home before dark, or the Batman will get you.” A terrifying threat, but without any real conviction. Still, Sarah always found her way back to the small, grungy apartment in time to watch the streetlights flicker on from the relative safety of the dirty windows. 

It changed to mockery in her teen years. “What are you afraid of, the Batman? He only comes out after dark,” her classmates would taunt if someone was recticient to commit the sorts of petty crimes that public schools were known for. It was the chant that accompanied her first purloined cigarette, her first shoplifted six-pack. 

As long as the sun was out, he couldn’t get you. 

 

And yet, like a goddamn idiot, here she was, standing on the corner long after the sun had dipped behind the skyscrapers downtown, leaving the rest of the city in their long shadow. She took another drag of her cigarette, legally bought, and squinted down the alleyway where Big Tom had said to meet him. He was just barely late. This was not unusual. Drug dealers weren’t known for their punctuality, but Big Tom was the sort of “friend” who, when he asked for a favor, you didn’t say no. So she leaned back against the rough grey stone of whatever dilapidated building framed the alley, and tried not to let her thoughts wander too far. 

 

They say he isn’t human. That even though he has two arms, two legs, and all the requisite joints to connect these, he doesn’t move like any person should. If that sounds absurd, well. The world has been going slowly insane for a while now, and doesn’t the Justice League have a couple aliens anyway? None of them seem quite as horrifying as the Batman, though. 

And it is  _ the _ Batman. It’s not a title or a name. It’s a description, at best. Something to call this creature that haunts the city. 

They say he can hear everything that happens in the city. They say that he can see in the dark, or that he doesn't need to see, or that he can see through the eyes and ears of all the bats in the city. They say he can fly, or walk through walls, or disappear in nothing but a puff of smoke that smells like brimstone and judgement. They say that only the lucky ones get dropped off with the police- the unlucky ones get dragged back to his lair where he eats them, or experiments on them, or sacrifices them to whatever dark powers he uses.

 

She had a cousin who’d grown up to the south on tales of Bigfoot and Mothman, but as far as she could tell, Bigfoot never left a bloody kingpin on the stairs of a police precinct. 

Sarah pulled her phone out and stared at the screen, willing it to tell her something useful. No texts from Big Tom, or Danny, or any of the other people who might contact her to tell her something had changed. No missed calls either. Was he really just going to leave her standing here all night? 

She scrolled through the news feed too, desperate for something to do other than think about what it meant to be out in the dark in Gotham’s underbelly. The news didn’t have anything interesting, which was to say, no sightings of the Batman. But this wasn’t surprising. They say that he doesn’t show up on camera, that like a vampire he had no reflection. This much, Sarah knew was true. Not from personal experience, but from a decent understanding of the human condition. If the Batman could be spotted on camera, he would have been. But anyone who tried to record a video of the dark shape sweeping across the night sky would find the footage corrupted when they tried to check it the next morning. And anyone closer, usually didn’t have much chance to think about snapping pics. 

There was a soft thud somewhere off to her side, and Sarah jumped. Jumped, like a kid. Like someone who had never had to make the sorts of hard choices that Gotham demanded of its citizens every damn day. But when her head whipped around, it was just a rat, dragging off an empty can. Her gaze swept the awnings and rooftops nearby, just in case. The lack of anything else to see didn’t do much to slow her pounding pulse. 

 

And they say, if the Batman isn’t enough on his own, he has a whole family of demons at his beck and call. 

They say the Robin isn’t a boy or a girl- it’s neither. It’s both. They say the Robin isn’t alive anyway, so that shit doesn’t matter, that if you look closely enough, the red suit is actually fresh blood. Its blood. Or yours if you get too close. They say that nothing can hurt it. You could unload a full clip into its bright red chest, and the next night, it’ll be out again, grinning from ear to ear. Not the smile of a child, but the bared teeth of an animal that’s just spotted its next meal. 

They say the Batgirl can read your mind, can see into the future. Just when you think you’ve gotten away from her, there she is, waiting for you. They say she’s what happens to a child when the Batman gets ahold of you, that she might have been human once, but she isn’t anymore. Or they say that he dreamed her, and she escaped the city. He hunts for her when he isn’t hunting his preferred prey. They say if the Robin is a corpse, then the Batgirl is a ghost, and there is no hiding from a ghost. 

They say the Batwoman might be the worst of all, though. They say she follows, follows from the rooftops, and sees every sin in the city. They say that if the Batman is the Devil, then the Batwoman is his interrogator. They say her touch burns. They say she can hide in plain sight, that anyone you meet might be the Batwoman in disguise, testing to see if you’re ready to be dragged to hell with her. 

They say.  

 

“On second thought,” Sarah said to herself, “fuck Big Tom.” She flicked her cigarette onto the sidewalk, and went home. 

  
  


**Epilogue**

“Master Dick, it seems you still have a red spot on your shirt,” Alfred said mildly, setting plates on the long dining table.

“Do I?” the boy asked, looking down at his chest in dismay. “Awww dammit. I thought I’d scrubbed all the fake blood off before I changed.” 

“Bruce is gonna be pissed,” chirped a slightly smaller dark haired boy, already sitting at the table. 

“Oh shut it, Tim.” A redheaded girl rounded the corner, carrying silverware. 

“You’re one to talk, Carrie. You still have your eyes in,” Dick pointed out. She flashed him a glare, made infinitely more menacing by the inky black contacts she wore, which covered not just her irishes, but the whole of her visible eyes. A staring contest with her was like a staring contest with the abyss. 

“You know the rules, Mistress Carrie. No costumes at the dinner table,” Alfred said in the same mild tone. She threw the silverware on the table and stomped off upstairs. 

“How many are we expecting?” Dick asked Alfred, grabbing the silverware from where Carrie had scattered it across the table. 

“I believe Miss Gordon and Miss Kane will joining us after their shifts end.” 

Dick set two extra places at the table as the sky began to redden to the east. 

“But, ah. Master Damian has requested his dinner be sent to his room,” Alfred added. Dick rolled his eyes, and removed a set.  

“I swear this job was easier when people didn’t have a camera in their pockets 24/7,” Bruce said, sighing, as he came through the kitchen door into the most intimate of Wayne Manor’s dining rooms. It could  _ only  _  seat 20, and it was where the family ate most of their dinners when the rest of the manor wasn’t lit up and decked out for another famous Wayne party. 

“You’re not wrong, sir,” Alfred agreed. “But I have already scrubbed the footage from your various sightings around the city with Miss Gordon’s program.” 

“Kate texted to say she needs her gloves fixed,” Tim chimed in. 

“She texted you?” Carrie asked, still glaring as she came back into the room, although now her eyes were a perfectly reasonable, and perhaps even pretty, blue. 

“Well, uh. She texted Bruce while you guys were out on patrol,” Tim stammered. 

“Ooooh,” the other Robins chorused as Bruce frowned. 

“I’d rather you didn’t look at my phone, Tim.” 

“I know, but I. It was from Kate, and it might have been important.” Tim practically sank under the table in embarrassment and frustration. “You guys are the worst.” 

“I get that,” Bruce said, “but sometimes other people send me things I’d rather you didn’t see.” 

“What did Kate say was wrong with her gloves?” Dick, the oldest and therefore the only one who understood what Bruce was trying desperately not to say, cut in. Bruce flashed him a grateful look. 

“Just something about the acid balance not being right. It’s supposed to feel like it burns, without actually hurting anyone, right? Well, I guess someone actually got burned a couple nights ago.” 

“I told her those gloves were taking things too far,” Bruce grumbled, sliding into his chair. 

“A fact which I’m sure she will be delighted to be reminded of,” Alfred said. 

“Speaking of reminders, who all has homework?” Bruce asked from his sport at the head of the table.

The groan that arose from the rest of the table was the most normal sound in the world. 


End file.
